BOW WAVE 538

Bow Wave Issue 538--Shipmaster Law Edition

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(c)2010 WavyLine.com	Issue No 538 15 Mar 10
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Editor: Sam Ignarski
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In this issue:

1. Welcome
2. Book Review
3. Freight Theft in the USA
4. Further Thoughts on Empties
5. English Law and Insurance through Russian Eyes
6. And Finally...

1. Welcome

Poem of the Week

Elegy for the Personal Letter

I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,
the ink blots and crossouts that show
someone lives on the other end, a person
whose hands make errors, leave traces.
I miss fine stationary, its raised elegant
lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory
or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes
dashed off on notebook paper, edges
ragged as their scribbled messages--
can't much write now--thinking of you.
When letters come now, they are formatted
by some distant computer, addressed
to Occupant or To the family living at--
meager greetings at best,
salutations made by committee.
Among the glossy catalogs
and one time only offers
the bills and invoices,
letters arrive so rarely now that I drop
all other mail to the floor when
an envelope arrives and the handwriting
is actual handwriting, the return address
somewhere I can locate on any map.
So seldom is it that letters come
That I stop everything else
to identify the scrawl that has come this far--
the twist and the whirl of the letters,
the loops of the numerals. I open
those envelopes first, forgetting
the claim of any other mail,
hoping for news I could not read
in any other way but this.

Allison Joseph, from My Father's Kites. (2010)

New Readers this week include:-

John Gramstad of Solvang Ship in Norway
Stephen L. Caldwell of the US GAO
Stuart Forsyth of the Scottish Boatowners Mutual
Readers at Vogel in Belgium
Readers at Procon in the Ukraine

Note from the Editor

Greetings from sunny Britain where the daffodils are appearing late after a cold cold winter.

Quite a bookish edition this week.

Enjoy!

2. Book Review

The International Law of the Shipmaster by John A.C. Cartner, Richard P Fiske and Tara L Leiter, (2009) Informa Law, 786pp, ISBN 978 1 84311 807 7.

Some law books are the product of a single mind, produced in long and solitary labour and expressive of an individual's singular qualities. Others are like political parties, a coalition of philosophies, running across a spectrum and expressing the viewpoint of an alliance, parts of which are not entirely at one.

This work has more of the latter quality. It is clearly at home in the energetic tradition of American legal prose, richly footnoted, with bare assertions kept to a minimum. Readers who visit its chapters will do so again and again for it is by no means easy to overfly and many of the satisfactions of reading the work come from the careful consideration of sources and the discussion of sources.

Like any maritime lawyers worth their salt, the authors of this book take the time to tarry over the history of the shipmaster's calling, his treatment under the law of nations, private international law, and the laws of the nation state. Two thirds of the book are given over to a country by country review of the principal domestic laws governing the shipmaster. This is the third part. The first part is an attempt to place the shipmaster in context and the second discusses the doctrines of the law of the shipmaster and it is this part which resembles most closely a conventional textbook dealing with the subject within what might be called the ordinary order of charterparties, bills of lading and the duties owed by shipmasters in respect of safety, labour the environment and so forth.

What so far has the imagination and admirable thoroughness of the authors' attention to detail done for this reviewer? It has made much clearer how the civil law tradition plays a larger role in this field than does the common law. It has reminded us that the maritime world is a product of civilisation and man's urge to trade. We cannot but admire the book's reservations in relation to the "security culture" which over the past decade has made life for the shipmaster and mariner much more difficult than it need be.

Books devoted to the shipmaster are not common. The last time anyone wrote about the shipmaster in this depth was for the 14th edition of Abbott on Shipping (1912). Perhaps this is a testimony to the kind of occupation that is ship- master. In our modern world of second-guessers, spinners and internal plotters, there are few ways of life which resemble that of the shipmaster for its primary exposures to the risks of shipping, for the non-delegability of his duties and for the very real way the shipmaster's own hide is on the line when things go wrong.

A book like this is something of an event in our industry. It deserves a careful reading from people in the industry for it puts flesh on the bones of many truths of the modern era: that the shipmaster in sole charge has to wrestle with a lot of issues, jurisdictions and people, sometimes in conditions of unenviable solitude.

3. Freight Theft in the USA

Our attention was drawn by the most recent NAMS Global News e-zine to this interesting item of criminal news:-

Cargo Robberies Are "Wreaking Havoc"

Thieves are swiping tractor-trailers filled with goods, triggering a spike in cargo theft on the nation's highways. Truckloads containing $487 million of goods were stolen in the U.S. in 2009, a 67% increase over the $290 million worth of products swiped a year earlier. Thieves stole 859 truckloads in 2009, up from 767 loads in 2008 and 672 in 2007, according to FreightWatch International. "In the past two months, we've just seen such an increase that it's to the point where criminals are just wreaking havoc," said Sandor Lengyel, a detective sergeant and squad leader in New Jersey State Police's cargo-theft unit. "They'll pretty much steal anything." Law-enforcement authorities in Illinois, California and Pennsylvania are among several agencies and industry groups also reporting a spike. While organized-crime rings may be involved, "we are seeing a lot more amateurs get into this," said Sgt. Sid Belk, of the California Highway Patrol. Thieves often know what cargo a truck is hauling because they will follow trucks from a plant, according to police. Cargo theft represents a big concern and cost for trucking and other freight haulers, says J.J. Coughlin, chairman of the SouthWest Transportation Security Council, a nonprofit industry group that represents more than 200 freight-shipping companies. The council estimates that the average loss in each theft is $350,000--and that is just the load inside the truck. "Sometimes you lose that too," he said of the tractor-trailer. Typically, though, the tractor-trailer is found miles away. California, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Illinois and New Jersey are the top states for number of cargo thefts, according to FreightWatch. The crooks are targeting such things as electronics, food and beverages, clothing, pharmaceuticals and cigarettes. (Source--The Wall Street Journal, 2/1/2010.)

4. Further Thoughts on Empties

Henry Boyd has written in with thoughts in relation to last week's item in Bow Wave Issue 537 looking for a tech solution for cracking the curse of empties

This is not only a European issue.he writes. The US port statistics show that for the past several years there has been a 2 to 1 ratio of import to export loads.

Over the years there have been a number of ideas proposed that might mitigate the problem. The most notable being the collapsable container. While I never had any first hand experience with any of the variants, my feeling was and still is that fold down containers are just too complicated to work.

Recently there has been some research here in the US on a container design that might provide a solution for the effects of lop sided trade. This research funded by various military and supply chain security initiatives centers around the use of a polymer based shell for the container body. The shell is placed onto a steel frame containing the requisite corner castings. The material as I understand it is similar to what is used in the making of the plastic air cargo containers for hauling luggage. This material is being considered as security devices can easily be imbedded in the the structure. The idea is not so strange as it sounds at first blush. Tank containers after all are just big barrels suspended in the middle of a rectangular frame that is carrying all of the container interface loads. So a dry freight design that relies on the frame to carry the major interface loads is clearly a do-able thing. That leaves the internal loads that result from cargo shifting. While the loads on the walls of a standard container are high in total (sometimes multiples of gross weight), when applied as distributed loads over the various walls they translate to less than 10 pounds per square inch in most cases! So it looks like the military could have another specialty container design in the future.

But the material is also recyclable. And that suggests the container would be as well. A container constructed with a polymer shell and steel frame could be broken down, the shell ground into plastic pellets (the form needed for molding) and the pieces of several containers transported in a single box.

There would have to be some re-thinking of how we view the container, but the pay off may be worth it. With a carry everything out that is carried in policy, the ships will always be 25% under utilized when measured by revenue generating containers carried vs non revenue boxes.

Contact Henry at:-

mailto:com

5. English Law and Insurance through Russian Eyes

Key figures in the insurance market of Russia and neighbouring countries, and their business partners in London, are adding to their bookshelves an amazing compendium of insurance and reinsurance practice, case law, history and humour.

Entitled Let us Chat, the 1,330 page, two volume work published by Kazakhstan insurance company Eurasia and London-headquartered Oakeshott Insurance Consultants, has been launched to a selected audience in the London market and shipped to contacts in the former Soviet region.

The updated contents are largely based on 12 years of seminars, talks and written presentations by George Grishin, head of Oakeshott, who is dedicated to bridging western and eastern markets. It includes more than just insurance law: insurance lore is a constant theme, with briefing for clients in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan and elsewhere about the culture and ways of doing business with England.

Subjects range from comment on insurance business lines, from motor to marine; to people, companies and markets; essays on England and mini-tutorials on the language; comment on insurance and reinsurance contracts in English law; reinsurance disputes; regulatory supervision; and the broking sector.

Grishin adds his unique perspective on insurance history and world events, spiced with his ready wit and humour. Unusually for a book dedicated to the insurance market, there is a fascinating section of formal and informal photos from recent years of personalities and historic events, such as the visit by then Lloyd’s chairman Murray Lawrence to Moscow in 1990.

The text is mostly in Cyrillic, but with some English analysis and references -- such as the echoes of insurance practice in extracts from another book of its time: Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

Oakeshott, which places marine and non-marine insurances and reinsurances into London and Continental markets, and Western risks with reliable Russian insurers -- "the experience on both sides has been favourable" -- has just hosted its third London seminar on its sphere of expertise, welcoming 100 people from the London market and overseas visitors, and took the opportunity to announce the launch of another book,Energy Wars, by Vladimir Grishin, throwing further light on the region’s latest commercial developments.

Further information is available from Katerina Grishina at 00 44 20 7680 1230 or

mailto:Wecanhelp@oakinsur.com

6. And Finally...

Many thanks to Paul Dixon for these....

Odds

Two men walk into a bar. One sits at one end of the bar and the other at the opposite end. The bartender asks the first man what he wants.

I'll have a Frizzle...that's a beer with a splash of tonic, a splash of orange juice, a squeeze of lemon, no lime."

Then the man at the other end of the bar orders. "Make mine a Frizzle.It's a beer with just a bit of tonic, a bit of orange juice, a squeeze of lemon, but no lime."

The astonished bartender makes the drinks. Then he asks the first man what he does for a living.

"I am a theoretical mathematician at the university."

Then he asks the other man what he does.

"Theoretical mathematician at the college."

"This is remarkable," says the bartender. "You both order a drink that I've never heard of. You have the identical profession and you both walk into my bar on the same day at the same time. What are the odds on something like t hat happening?"

Both men look up and answer in unison, "Twelve trillion, nine hundred, and eighty-seven billion to one."

Handy Man's Workshop Tool Definitions

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal pieces out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted project part you are working on.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch...."

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new disk brake pads, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off a hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbors to see if he has an other hydraulic floor jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog poo off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps off in bolt holes you couldn't use anyway.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the tensile strength on everything you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large prybar that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, it's main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last over tightened 58 years ago by someone at ERCO, and neatly rounds off their heads.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace a part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses too short for their intended purpose.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate the most expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on contents such as new racing seat pads, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund checks, and rubber or plastic parts.

DAMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "DAMMIT" at the top of your lungs.

It is also the next tool that you will need.

P.S. History Lessons I missed

Strange History You Didn't Get in High School

Part I (the B.C. years)

3050 B.C. - A Sumerian invents the wheel. Within the week, the idea is stolen and duplicated by other Sumerians, thereby establishing the business code of ethics.

2900 B.C. - Egyptians create Sphinx, one of Seven Great Wonders of the Ancient World, but refuse to talk about it.

1850 B.C. - Britons announce Operation Stonehenge a success after arranging slabs in sufficiently meaningless pattern to confuse scientists for centuries.

1785 B.C. - The first calendar is introduced by Babylonian scientists.

1768 B.C. - Babylonians experience winter in June.

776 B.C. - The world's first known money appears in Persia. World's first known counterfeiter appears in Persia next day.

525 B.C. - The first Olympics are held in Greece. USSR enters six footer with a mustache in women's shot put.

410 B.C. - Rome ends the practice of enslaving debtors, removing biggest single obstacle to the development of the credit card.

404 B.C. - The Peloponnesian war enters 27th year because neither side can find a treaty writer who can spell Peloponnesian.

214 B.C. - Tens of thousands of Chinese people complete 1,500 mile long Great Wall. Neighbor's dog gets through.

1 B.C. - Calendar manufacturers argue over what to call the next year.

Part II ( Early A.D.)

79 A.D. - Property in Pompeii turns out to be bad investment.

432 A.D - St. Patrick introduces Christianity to Ireland, thereby giving the natives topic to fight about for the rest of recorded history.

1000 A.D. - Leif Ericsson discovers America; decides it's not worth mentioning.

1043 A.D. - Lady Godiva demonstrates against high taxes, causing all to forget what she is demonstrating against.

1125 A.D. - Arabic numerals are introduced to Europe, enabling peasants to solve how much tax each owes on MMMDCCCLX Lira when you're in the XXXVI percent bracket?

1233 A.D. - Inquisition begins. Practice is so un-Christian it is permitted to continue for only 600 years.

1297 A.D. - World's first stock exchange opens. Few have foresight to buy IBM.

1433 A.D. - Portugal launches African slave trade, proving what a small nation can do with a little ingenuity and much evil.

1456 A.D. - English judge reviews Joan of Arc's case and cancels her death sentence of 1431.

1492 A.D. - Columbus lands in Bahamas, names it San Salvador, and calls the natives, Indians.

1497 A.D. - Amerigo Vespucci becomes the first to think of naming the new world in honor of himself...the United States of Vespuccia!

1508 A.D. - Michelangelo accedes to Pope's demands to paint ceiling of Sistine Chapel, but refuses to wash the windows.

1513 A.D. - Ponce de Leon finds the Fountain of Youth, but dies of old age trying to remember where.

1522 A.D. - Scientists, who know the world is flat, conclude that Magellan made it all the way around by crawling across the bottom.

1568 A.D. - Upset by the slander of his good name, Russian leader kills 100,000 peasants to make them stop calling him Ivan the Terrible.

1607 A.D. - Indians laugh themselves silly as first European tourist to visit Virginia tries to register as "John Smith".

1618 A.D. - Britain executes Sir Walter Raleigh, but allow his tobacco plants to live.

1642 A.D. - The first nine students to receive Bachelor of Arts degrees in America, discover there are no jobs available for a kid with a liberal arts education.

1670 A.D. - Pilgrims, busy burning witches, fail to observe golden anniversary of winning religious freedom.

1755 A.D. - Samuel Johnson issues the first English Dictionary, at last providing young children with a source of dirty words.

1758 A.D. - New Jersey is chosen as the site of America's first Indian reservation, giving Indians an idea of living conditions they can expect.

1763 A.D. - The French and Indian War ends. Both sides lose.

1770 A.D. - The shooting of three people in the Boston Massacre touches off the Revolution. 200 Years later, three shootings in Boston are average for a Saturday Night.

1773 A.D. - Colonists dump tea into Boston Harbor. British call the act "barbaric", noting that no one added cream.

1776 A.D. - Napoleon maintains neutrality during American Revolution, primarily because he is seven years old.

1779 A.D. - John Paul Jones notifies British, "I have just begun to fight!" and notices his ship is sinking.

1793 A.D. - "Let them eat cake!" becomes the most famous thing Marie Antionette ever said. Also, the least diplomatic thing she ever said. Also, the last.

1799 A.D. - Translation of Rosetta Stone enables scholars to learn that Egyptian hieroglyphics say fundamental stuff: "Dear Ramses, How are you? I am fine."

1805 A.D. - Robert Fulton invents the torpedo.

1807 A.D. - Robert Fulton invents the steamship to provide target for torpedos.

1815 A.D. - Post Office policy is established as Andrew Jackson wins the Battle of New Orleans a month after letter was mailed telling him the War of 1812 is over.

1840 A.D. - William Henry Harrison is elected president in landslide, proving very few could disagree with campaign motto, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too."

1850 A.D. - Henry Clay announces, "I'd rather be right than president," after running for president five times without winning.

1859 A.D. - Charles Darwin writes "Origin of the
Species". Containing same general plot as "Planet of the Apes", it fails to gross as much money.

1865 A.D. - Union Soldiers face greatest challenge of the war: sobering Grant for Lee's surrender.

1894 A.D. - Thomas Edison displays first motion picture, applauded by all but movie critics.

1903 A.D. - Opening of Trans-Siberian Railway enables passengers from Moscow to reach Vladivostok in eight days, much sooner than most desire.

1910 A.D. - Founding of Boy Scouts of America comes as bad news to independent old ladies at traffic lights.

1911 A.D. - Rauld Amundsen discovers South Pole and confirms his suspicions: It looks a lot like the North Pole.

1912 A.D. - People with reservations for the voyage of the Titanic get their money back.

1920 A.D. - The 18th Amendment to the Constitution makes drinking illegal in the U.S. Everyone stops, except for 40 million who do not.

1924 A.D. - Hitler is released from prison four years early, after convincing parole board he is a changed man.

1928 A.D. - Herbert Hoover promises, "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage," neglecting to add that most Americans will soon be without both.

1930 A.D. - Pluto is discovered; the planet. The dog wasn't discovered until 1938.

1933 A.D. - German housewives begin to realize why wallpaper hanger with mustache never came back to finish the job.

1933 A.D. - Hitler establishes Third Reich, announcing it will last a thousand years, an error of only 988.

1934 A.D. - John Dillinger, gunned down by police on leaving Chicago film theater, gasps that he didn't like the movie, either.

1934 A.D. - Great Depression, giving businessmen headaches, reaches climax with birth of Ralph Nader.

1938 A.D. - Great Britain and Germany sign a peace treaty, averting WW II.

1944 A.D. - Hitler's promise of Volkswagens for all Germans as soon as they've won the war proves to be insufficient incentive

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